Biography

American physician who devoutly believes in euthanasia, "the good death" for the terminally ill who wish to opt for that choice. Since his first assisted suicide in 1990 in an old Volkswagen van, a 54-year-old Alzheimer's patient, he has by his own count assisted more than 130 sick patients to self-terminate. Continually pushing the limits of legality, Kevorkian has been charged with murder six times and acquitted each time.

On 9/17/1998 he injected Thomas Youk with enough sedative to kill him, and was charged - and convicted - of second-degree murder in a Michigan court on 3/26/1999. He had crossed the line from providing the means to active participation and videotaped the procedure. He was given 10-25 years prison sentence on 4/13/1999. His earliest possible release date is in May 2007.

Kevorkian was the only son of Armenian refugees. His mother’s death from cancer was long and painful, but not the catalyst for her son’s interest in assisted suicide. Early in his career as a pathologist, he argued for anesthetizing death-row inmates before execution, if they consented, for the purposes of organ harvesting and medical experiments. During the Vietnam War he suggested pumping blood directly from the dead into wounded soldiers who needed transfusions. As a pathology resident, he earned the nickname "Dr. Death" for experiments in which he photographed the eyes of dying patients. He's also a painter, depicting gruesome death scenes and sometimes using his own blood as a medium.

Dr. Kevorkian was released from prison after eight years of internment on June 1, 2007.

Early in the day on June 3, 2011, he died from kidney and heart problems in a Royal Oak, MI hospital where he had been admitted two weeks prior.